Talk:Squirrel

Damn good article

I have followed the squirrel and Sciuridae article development and I just reread this article for the first time in awhile.

I would just like to congratulate the various authors and editors on a very good job. It is well written. It covers the most important aspects of the subject and the combination of the two articles, Squirrel and Sciuridae, with the addition of the squirrel DAB did a good job on handling the semantic issues related to title and subject of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davefoc (talk • contribs) 20:23, 13 April 201 (UTC)0

Variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (Kuru) from eating squirrel brains.

The article links "Variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (Kuru) from eating squirrel brains." with 2 sources - but if you follow the link there is this section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Creutzfeldt%E2%80%93Jakob_disease#False_link_to_consumption_of_squirrel_brains which says

> Despite the fact that there is no scientific basis for this connection, much reporting surrounds both the 1997 Lancet article, and the 2018 Live Science article, most echoing their statements. Although eating the nervous tissue of any mammal is not recommended due to the risk of disease transmission, fundamentally, there is no robust scientific evidence that the consumption of squirrel brains presents a risk factor for vCJD at any level, or has ever caused a case of vCJD in humans.

So should this link just be removed, or changed to reflect this being commonly reported but with no evidence? 90.249.202.226 (talk) 11:28, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 October 2025

Under See Also, remove or add qualifiers to the claim linking the consumption of squirrel brains to vCJD. The linked article on vCJD provides sources dismissing the claim as myth, and addresses the specific 2018 news articles also linked there. Louscher.hunter (talk) 22:07, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

7&6=thirteen, would you mind taking a look at this, since you were the one who added this originally? Slomo666 (talk) 22:15, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Not done for now: I cannot verify the claim as I cannot read the article right now Slomo666 (talk) 22:16, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Slomo666 Louscher.hunter See WP:Linkrot. It said what I said it said at the time. WP:Verifiable; Could be qualified if you have a separate source. See also WP:truth. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:20, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Question / discrepancy on "date from the Eocene epoch"

From the top section, "The earliest known fossilized squirrels date from the Eocene epoch...". This cites Rodents by Emily H Kay and Hopi E Hoekstra. However, from their paper it says "Some of the earliest fossils collected in Wyoming and Europe suggested that rodents evolved in Laurasia late in the Paleocene, 55–60 million years ago." That is in reference to rodents in general, not specifically squirrels. However, it goes on to say "Rodent diversification is documented throughout the Eocene (55–34 million years ago), and by 20 million years ago, many of today's recognizable rodent families had emerged." So this citation is not specifically saying squirrels date back to Eocene and could have subsequently developed before or during the Oligocene era. If I am reading the article correctly at least! The citation doesn't link to a copy of the article so I am using: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(08)00319-9. If anyone could sanity / fact check this I would appreciate it!